


I Dreamt Of Sin and Aftermath; I Dreamt Of Centuries Laid Bare

by HarveyWallbanger



Series: A Letter In Your Writing Doesn't Mean You're Not Dead [4]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Abusive Parents, Blood, Bloodplay, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Experimental Style, F/F, Gen, M/M, Magic, Minor Character Death, Pretentious, Vampires, arty bullshit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-11
Updated: 2014-04-11
Packaged: 2018-01-18 22:44:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1445566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarveyWallbanger/pseuds/HarveyWallbanger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone's learning all kinds of things they didn't really want to know.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Dreamt Of Sin and Aftermath; I Dreamt Of Centuries Laid Bare

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from the song, The Double Life, by Siouxsie and the Banshees. I am not involved with the production of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and this school is not involved with the production of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. No one pays me to do this. Don't try any of this at home.  
> Like it says in the tags, this is pretentious arty bullshit. More than my writing usually is. There are two segments that are cut-ups, meaning that the original text has been rearranged at random to create what I hope is a sense of chaotic movement unmoored from linear time, but not without meaning to the narrative. Thank you, and good night.

It's their first fight. Their first real fight. With slamming doors and raised voices and tears like marbles of ice behind the eyes. Waiting to melt and fall with spring. Willow goes to the library. Tara sits down on the bed, then gets up, walks to the door, goes back to the bed and sits down again. She gets up, and walks to the door, slowly this time, as though in a daze, because she knows where she has to go. And it's sick and it's wrong, but she can't imagine anyone else who could possibly understand, in as real a way that

“I'm a monster.”  
Ethan hands her a cup of tea. “In what respect?”  
She looks down at her hands. She's holding the cup, but she doesn't feel the smoothness of the porcelain or the heat of the tea. She has the urge to compress it in her hands, to see if she could crush it, crumple it like paper. “I'm a demon.”  
“Really? You're just full of surprises. What kind?”  
“What kind?”  
“Yes. Which species? Is your home the sea, perhaps? Are you a kind of lorelai, maybe?”  
She doesn't know why, but she laughs. “No.” She shakes her head. “I don't think so.”  
“Are you, perhaps, a spirit of the air? Have you wings, and talons?”  
“Not that I know of.” Unthinking, she glances over her shoulder.  
“Your face is certainly human enough.” Ethan looks her in the eyes, and she holds his gaze as long as she's able. His eyes are darker than Giles'. “Nothing in the eyes betrays your putative demonic lineage. Have you developed a craving for human flesh, or perhaps blood?”  
“N-no.”  
“Well, you would have noticed if you had. Any desire to tunnel underground, to dwell in caves, or even basements?”  
“No.”  
“Well, I'm stumped.”  
“It hasn't happened yet.”  
He raises his eyebrows. “Oh, a curse, perhaps.”  
“It's supposed to happen when I turn twenty.”  
“Why?”  
“Why?”  
“Yes. Curses usually have a root. Did you offend someone with great power?”  
“No- not me. It's our family.”  
“Everyone becomes a demon when they turn twenty?”  
“Just the women.”  
“Convenient,” he mutters. “So, it happened to your mother?”  
“I- I guess so.”  
“But she married into your family. So, it isn't transmitted genetically.”  
“I guess not.”  
“Well, if you'd like, I could clear up the confusion for you.”  
“Wha- what do you mean?”  
“Well, I could do a kind of test, to determine what kind of demon it is you're supposed to be. If, as I'd imagine, it's because of a curse, I could discover the origin and nature of the curse.”  
“You- you can? Why are you doing this? Why are you helping me?”  
“I'm not allowed to be helpful?”  
“It's just... weird. Aren't you sort of evil?” She looks down at her cup.  
His voice is usually soft, he raises it even less than Giles did, but there's also a strange gentleness to it when he replies, “I don't like the idea of 'good' or 'evil'. It's a cliche, but I don't really believe in them. I like to change things, especially if they've gone on being a certain way for too long. Now, I'll just need a drop of your blood and a few strands of your hair. Let me get my candles and mercurochrome.”

She sucks at her finger, and he hands her a bandaid.  
“Now, I'll just need you to be quiet for a little while.”  
She puts on the bandaid and crumples up the wrapper. “Are you going into a trance?”  
“Yes, but just a light one. When you've been doing this as long as I have, it's easier getting into a trance than out of one.”  
“What do you- I mean, how you do it?”  
“It helps to develop a sense of perspective. I imagine myself as being infinitely small, and a part of everything. Once I not just feel but know this, experience it as reality, it becomes easy to access any information I might need.”  
“Oh.”  
She watches him, sees the way his face softens in repose. She remembers seeing Giles' face do that sometimes, when he was tired or it was quiet and he didn't think anyone was watching. The pain in her finger is acute and cruel. The pain in her eyes and throat is blooming into fullness. When she spoke, her voice cranked out of her like a ribbon of paper. She doesn't even realize that she's closed her eyes until she's already fallen asleep, and

she dreams. The house is made of panes of glass, and Giles is behind every wall. She watches dozens of him read the newspaper, or drink tea, or eat breakfast, or fall asleep on the couch, or watch TV. Ethan, still in his Giles costume, watches, too.  
“Wouldn't you like to see me as I really am?” he asks.  
“I don't need to see you with your clothes off.”  
“Now, I'm going to tell you what you want to know.”  
“Okay.”  
“The first thing you must remember is to keep her out of your mother's liquor cabinet. This is the first and most important thing.”  
Tara laughs, shaking her head. “She's doesn't even drink.”  
“If you let her into that house, it must surely mean your doom.”  
“I'm not concerned with that right now. This isn't that year yet.”  
“Fine. The next thing you need to know is that this is all a series of props. The knife only cuts because you make it so. Remove its point, and it'll have none. You need to stop thinking this. This is true in both cases.”  
“All right.”  
“And you need to wake up, because this is getting you nowhere. You can sleep when you're dead. And you will, eventually. But none of this really matters, anyway, because you're going to wipe the day clean.”

She wakes up.  
“You looked so peaceful, I didn't want to disturb you.”  
She blinks hard. “What did you find?”  
“Well, you're no more a demon than you are Marie of Romania. As for a curse, I found no evidence of one. No spells, no enchantments, not even a smudge on your soul. I'm inclined to believe that someone's been lying to you.”  
She doesn't even feel the sob coming; it just comes, involuntarily, like a cough. She knows the others are behind it, but she can't stop them, either.  
“Oh, dear. I appear to have said the wrong thing.”  
“Nuh- no. No. It's not- it's not you-”  
“Let me get you a handkerchief.”  
He brings her one, and she crushes it against her eyes, crushes her eyes shut. When she opens them, her lashes scraping against each other, she's looking into the handkerchief. She opens it, smoothing her fingers against the damp spots. It bears a monogram. Giles' initials.  
“Keep it,” says Ethan, and closes her fingers around it.

“I'm so sorry,” Willow says as soon as Tara walks in.  
Tara lets Willow embrace her, but is too exhausted to hug back. “It's my fault, too,” Tara says softly, “I wasn't being honest with you. Not completely.” She pulls back, so she can look at Willow. “And I want to be. I need to be. But I'm so tired. I just need to be still for a while. So, can we just go to bed, now, and start again, tomorrow?”  
Willow pushes her hair away from her eyes. “Yeah. O-of course. Are you okay?”  
“No. But I will be. You'll help me.” She's not sure whether or not she means it to be a question, but she needs to hear the answer.  
Willow takes her hands. “Yeah. Yes. Yes, I will.”

She dreams of the wind, of a gale rushing down empty streets and through autumn trees. Her father is coming. Coming to take her away. There's something weird about the clothes everyone wears- like it's a historical play, but the costumers didn't do enough research. People keep telling her that he's coming. When she thinks of him, it's not his face that she sees. It's different, somehow. People keep saying that he's coming, he's coming. The words pile atop each other in layers, until the voices are all one sound, a vibrating roar. Then, suddenly, relief. She continues to hear that he's coming, but he never comes. Eventually, the voices fade, to the sound of the wind. And then, Willow is there, in a velvet cloak and a long dress with a full skirt, and there's kissing. Lots of kissing. Even in the dream, Tara knows that the significant part is over. But the good part is about to begin.

“I did a good deed today.”  
Spike raises his eyebrows. “How's that, then?”  
“I rescued a beautiful young witch from a wicked ogre.”  
“That doesn't sound like you.”  
“I'm full of surprises.”  
“Hmm,” is all Spike says.

Three people with the same last name drive all over town, looking for an errant daughter. They're strangers in this place, and though they have maps, they can't seem to get their bearings. Finally, tired of his son's incessant parrot-like utterances, the old man asks for directions. Almost immediately after hearing them, the old man, the young man, and the young woman forget what was said. It's getting dark, and the young woman says that they should find a hotel. Unusually, the old man takes her advice. They check into the Sunnydale Arms, lock the doors behind them, and go to sleep.  
When they awake, all three have the feeling that this vacation isn't what they'd imagined. The old man begins to feel poorly. The vague but all-encompassing malaise of old age. The young man doesn't have a sister, but if he did, he wouldn't come all the way to California to drag her back home. The young woman feels a sense of distaste she can't identify. There's something wrong with this place. It might be the water.  
In six months, the old man will be dead. Of what, no one can say. There are whispers of foul play, and his son is the only suspect. They lived in the same house, and they'd been fighting a lot lately. The old man had been having memory problems. It might have been grief: his wife had died a while back, but the period of mourning never seemed to end. There was a daughter, but if she were ever mentioned to him, he'd insist that his son was his only child. Maybe, some people say, after the old man's death, she'd been the young man's first victim. The young man starts drinking, alone in the big house. His cousin, Beth, checks in on him as often as she's able, but she meets a man, gets married, starts a family of her own. When she gets up to see him, this last time, her cousin has been dead for a week. The funeral is small. Closed casket. All of the family's property passes to Beth, her young husband, her little son, Michael, and her baby daughter, Tara.

“-And that was weird. I mean, it's probably weird enough seeing your high school Algebra teacher in the supermarket without the added weirdness of both of you having watched a big snake thing eating her boss.”  
Willow nods. “Emily Post really needs to cover that.”  
“Martha Stewart, at least,” Buffy says, “She's missing out on a whole potential market for greeting cards.”  
Xander sits down next to them at the dining room table. “Hey, speaking of weird, have you guys noticed Giles acting kind of strange?”  
Anya makes a dismissive gesture. “Oh, he's probably still in mourning for his ex-”  
“Anya,” Buffy hisses, and nods toward Dawn.  
“Hamster.”  
Dawn rolls her eyes. “He didn't have a hamster.”  
“Yes, he did,” says Buffy, “He didn't talk about it, but he did have a hamster. Which he cared about deeply. But it's dead, so now, it's an ex-hamster.”  
“You guys can talk about whatever boring stuff you want,” Dawn huffs, and gets up from the table, “I don't care.” She leaves the room.  
“Anya's right,” Tara says, “Grief makes people behave in weird ways.  
Willow takes her hand. Xander looks down. Anya nods absently, flipping through a magazine she found on the table. Finally, Buffy speaks: “Tara's probably right. None of us can really understand what he's going through. We just have to give him time. Normal Giles-ness will resume.”  
But Buffy remembers

the other night. After her last fight with Glory, and the monk telling her about Dawn, and then dying in her arms. And how she'd forced herself to stand, and to walk, trembling and wanting to cry but being unable, to Giles' house. She'd knocked on the door a few times, quietly at first, because it was so late. Wincing, she'd rung the doorbell. She'd stood there, still but feeling as though she were moving, full of movement as though it were a liquid. Again, she'd rung the doorbell. Slowly, the smell of cigarettes had come to her, and she'd looked around as though shaken awake. There were cigarette butts on the ground before the threshold. It had seemed so wrong, for reasons she couldn't identify. She'd taken a breath, and then walked around the house. It was quiet. The whole neighborhood was quiet. There wasn't just the absence of sound, but the sense of the absence of the possibility of sound. The air was like the air in a tomb. She looked around. She ran.

It hits the floor with a sound like the shuffling of a deck of cards. Spike looks down and behind himself. “Mind the coat.”  
Ethan smiles. “Or what.”  
“Or I'll break your nose, and then take an aspirin.”  
“Would that chip be triggered, though, if you were to hurt me with my permission?”  
Spike shrugs. “Always wondered that, myself.”  
Ethan unbuttons another button of his shirt, and pulls aside the collar. “Help yourself. But do be gentle.”  
“Fuck.” Spike runs a finger over his lower lip. He puts his hand on Ethan's jaw, turns his head to the side. “It's just a bit weird, you know. You looking like him.”  
“As though you'd never considered it.”  
Spike laughs. If he had breath, it'd fan out over Ethan's cheek. “I don't know why he'd ever want to throw you over. You must have had such fun together.”  
“No accounting for taste.”  
There's a dull throb, when he bites Ethan. He isn't doing it particularly hard, and he's not using his fangs, but the pain comes, like a forgotten responsibility. Involuntarily, he starts, and Ethan places a hand on the back of his neck. He wants to shake away from it- it's too much- it's not him- it isn't, he's sure, even particularly like Ethan. He bites harder, provoking a more intense pang, rich and layered, first electric then full and flat. There's blood this time, a trickle smeared over the skin, and he licks, huffing in through his nose air he doesn't need. There's heat. There's so much heat. And the scent, the scent of blood heavy with adrenaline and dopamine and all those other chemicals- and, Christ, it was always so much better on those rare occasions when they wanted it. People like Ethan who were getting more than they'd bargained for, but just hadn't realized it yet. Sweet, until the penny dropped, and they were looking at genuine death- not just the suggestion, the perfume of death- and the sweetness turned bitter, and that was good, too. Ethan's making all of these sounds, spewing erotic inanities, in the voice of Rupert Giles. And, yeah, all those nights in that cold, hard bathtub, he'd thought about it. There hadn't been much else to do.  
He hears the footsteps, and hopes it's not for them. But then, there's a knock at the door.  
“Who the hell is that?” Ethan gasps.  
“Buffy.”  
“How can you tell?”  
“I can smell her.”  
“You cannot.”  
“I can.” Though, it's surprising to him that he can smell anything but the blood.  
“Shit. She's ringing the doorbell.”  
“Shut up. She'll hear.” He rubs his mouth against Ethan's neck, but the the bleeding has stopped.  
“She couldn't possibly,” Ethan replies, but in a lower tone.  
“She could, possibly. What do you want to do?”  
“If no one comes to the door, she'll have to leave.”  
“That, or kick in the door.”  
“Let's just wait her out.”  
“Fine,” Spike sighs. He lays his head on Ethan's shoulder, taking in both the scent of blood and the scent of Buffy, closes his eyes, and listens. After she rings the doorbell again, Buffy lingers on the threshold for a moment. Then, her small, quick steps make a circle around the house, and then there are smaller, quicker steps, still. She's running away. “She's gone,” Spike says. He lifts up his head. Ethan's hand is at the small of his back. As though they were waltzing, for fuck's sake.  
“What could she have wanted?” Ethan asks.  
“I'm a vampire; not a clairvoyant.” He presses his thumb into the irritated spot on Ethan's neck.  
“True.” Ethan swallows.  
“Do you want a fuck, or is this enough for you?”  
“It'll take a while to warm me up, but after that, I think you'll find that I'm capable of a sustained effort.”  
Spike smiles. “We'll take it slowly, shall we?”  
“I have nothing but time.”

“We should say something to Buffy,” Tara says as soon as they're out of Buffy's house, making their way back to the college.  
Willow gives Tara's hand a squeeze. “I don't know. What would we tell her?”  
Tara sort of shrugs. “I don't know. Just that something happened to Giles, but we're working on it.”  
“There's nothing that she can really do, though,” says Willow, “Buffy likes to do things. If there's a problem, she'll want to fix it, and it's not really a problem you can fix the Buffy way.”  
Tara nods. “It's not a fight-y problem.”  
“It's really not.”  
“So, we do the spell, but we don't tell anyone. Is that the right thing to do? This effects everyone.”  
Willow sighs. “You're right, but how does telling them help? Buffy will feel like she has to do something, Xander will just get freaked out, and Anya probably knew what was happening the whole time, but didn't want to tell us because it'd spoil the surprise.” She rolls her eyes.  
Tara swings the hand that holds Willow's. “What's the fun of knowing everything that's happening around you if you're just going to tell everyone?”  
“Well, she's eleven hundred years old. She has to make her own fun.”

Tara puts down her book, as Willow puts down hers.  
“Like synchronized swimming,” Willow chuckles.  
“We just need little matching outfits.”  
“With sequins. So, are we ready?”  
Tara sighs. “I don't know. How do we even know if we're ready? Is this a thing you can even be ready for?”  
Willow makes a face. “Ethan seemed pretty ready to take over Giles' life.”  
“I think it's different if you're evil. If you mess up and cause a lot of bad stuff to happen, you can just say you meant to do that. That's probably why everyone says that villains have style; it's just confidence.”  
“But the good guys have to worry about stuff like people not dying,and getting eight hours of sleep because they have class the next day.”  
Tara nods. “It's a burden.”  
“So, we just, y'know, try it and see what happens.”  
“I don't think there's any other way.”  
They set about gathering the things they need- the candles, and the incense, and the herbs. And Giles' handkerchief, stained with Tara's tears, but still scented with his cologne. And in the corner, minuscule and ancient but unmistakable, a pinprick of rust. Tara imagines Giles cutting his finger, and twisting around it the edge of the handkerchief. Ethan couldn't have seen the blood, couldn't have known. He couldn't-  
Willow's made a circle around in them in a mix of salt and herbs. She's lighting the candles and incense. A breath of cabinets and parchment and oxidized metal fills the room. The chatter from the hallway ceases, snuffed like a candle.  
“Okay,” breathes Tara.  
“Okay,” repeats Willow, looking into her eyes. Willow's breathing heavily, now, too.  
They join hands and sink to the floor.  
Willow breathes in deeply. “As your body is to you, so is my voice to your body,” she intones, “Be inside of it, and be inside of everything.”  
“I'm inside of everything,” Tara murmurs.  
“Know that this sound is a part of you, and know that you can always find it.”  
“I will always find it.”  
“Hold onto it, and know that it holds onto you.”  
“Hold on. I'm holding on.”  
“Hold on, and know that you can never get lost.”  
“I can't get lost.”  
“How could you get lost, when you're part of everything, and everything is part of you?”  
“Everything is part of me.”  
“Everything.”  
“Everything.”  
“Find what you are looking for.”  
“Find what I'm looking for.”  
“Find the piece that doesn't fit.”  
“I'll find the piece that doesn't fit.”

She's looking for the piece that doesn't fit. She finds herself outside of the room in the hallway, but it's not here. She goes outside, hears the sprinklers in the blossoming night, the acid hiss as they turn on and the seaside sound that follows. She sniffs the air. The smell of- what is it? She'll follow it, and find out. The air has the mellow cool of satin, and it crushes softly at her face as she passes through it.  
She finds herself at Buffy's house. No. No. This isn't right. This isn't where she's supposed to be. But she has to see what's here. She begins to feel sick- not even sick, but wrong, like parts of her are being rearranged. Something's happening. There's something else that doesn't fit, and it's here. Tara finds herself upstairs, in the hallway between Buffy's room and Dawn's. The air is still, and gray, somehow. Whatever she's going to find here, it's terrible, and it's wrong, but she has to see. She doesn't even have to move herself, she's moved- by what, she doesn't know- to the threshold of Dawn's room. Only, it isn't Dawn's room. It never was. It's dark, and full of old things that have no use at the present time. No life. No youth. No vital young girl, glad face and sunny voice. No Dawn. And Tara knew this, already, somehow. She knew that Dawn wasn't real. Or, she is real, in the sense of existing, but not real, in the sense of her not being Dawn. She's-  
Then, the room is Dawn's room, with Dawn in it, and Tara sees her. Sees her as she really is, or once was, or will be again. The name is fitting, for she's like the sun rising over the aquamarine glass flank of the sea. She's beautiful, and she's terrifying, and she could be anything, but this is what she is. Tara feels a great swell of affection for her, a hot horrible pounding like tears waiting to spill. It's not her. She's not what Tara is looking for.  
She's in the street again. The street in front of Giles' house. Then, she's in Giles' house. She can see the spell- no, smell it- no, feel it. It's all around her, in every possible way. But there, like a cornerstone- or the idea of one, because everything might seem solid but it's not- is one horrible fact. With all her strength, Tara kicks it away.

She's beautiful, and full of old things that have no use at the present time. And Tara knew this, She's not what Tara is looking for. There's something else that doesn't fit, a hot horrible pounding like tears waiting to spill. Glad face and sunny voice. Hears the sprinklers in the blossoming night, to move herself, She's looking for the piece that doesn't fit. Something's happening. And she's terrifying, But there, no, feel it. She knew that Dawn wasn't real. And it crushes softly at her face as she passes through it. She doesn't even have the acid hiss as they turn on in the hallway between Buffy's room and Dawn's. And it's wrong, what is it? She finds herself outside of the room in the hallway, herself upstairs, This isn't where she's supposed to be. She finds herself at Buffy's house. No vital young girl, It's all around her, in every possible way. She's moved- because everything might seem solid but it's not- Whatever she's going to find here, With all her strength, The air has the mellow cool of satin, and she could be anything, No Dawn. Then, is one horrible fact and the seaside sound that follows. For she's like the sun rising over the aquamarine glass flank She'll follow it, isn't Dawn's room but she has to see. And gray, in the sense of existing, it's terrible, Sees her as she really is, and Tara sees her. The room is Dawn's room, she has to see what's here. To the threshold of Dawn's room. No smell it- She goes outside, in the sense of her not being Dawn. She can see not even sick, but wrong, No life. And she's in Giles' house. Tara kicks it away. Or the idea of one, like parts of her are being the spell- She's in the street again. But this is what she is. Was, or will be again. Not here by what, with Dawn in it, Then, but not This isn't right feels a great swell of affection for her, The street in front of Giles' house. The smell of- she doesn't know- already, somehow. Tara finds The air is still, The name is fitting, find out. Only, but it's It's not her. It never was. Cornerstone- rearranged. Or once No. Buy No youth. It's dark, of the sea She begins to feel sick- somehow. And real, Or she is real, She's- She sniffs the air. It and it's here. No. Like a Tara

Dawn will flicker into view, She has no choice. Building herself from layer upon layer of the it's most like forceful currents of air. Chronologically younger by a few months is somehow older- illusion of memories of her. And what will happen to her? And she'll be full of suspicion and fear, not an ageless being possessed of inhuman wisdom, Has she done the right Things start moving. Spike is always just Spike. Already fading, somehow. And her place in the world. Back to July. But a young lady at the beginning of her life. He'll have to learn all those things about buildings all over again. Buffy will have fought Dracula, there's the sense of solidity combined with the lack of it. It's too late to think about that. She shrugs. About herself Things start She's aware of time moving backwards, Something is leaving her. Spike will remain much as he has for the past century; Will she remember? Thing? She has to let it she'll be a real girl. Xander is about to being working in older for being closer to Any of this her past. Soon, though And what will happen to Willow? Moving, rushing around her. Becoming more and more like what she seems to be: Though, Anya, she'll shed a little more of it, Each day, It's construction; Again, Perhaps, go, all the way

Things start moving. Again, there's the sense of solidity combined with the lack of it. Things start moving, rushing around her. Perhaps, it's most like forceful currents of air. Has she done the right thing? Though, it's too late to think about that. She's aware of time moving backwards, all the way back to July. Buffy will have just fought Dracula, and she'll be full of suspicion and fear, about herself and her place in the world. Dawn will flicker into view, building herself from layer upon layer of the illusion of their memories of her. Soon, she'll be a real girl. Xander is about to begin working in construction; he'll have to learn all those things about buildings all over again. Anya, though chronologically younger by a few months is somehow older- older for being closer to her past. Each day, she'll shed a little more of it, becoming more and more like what she seems to be: not an ageless being possessed of inhuman wisdom, but a young lady at the beginning of her life. Spike will remain much as he has for the past century; Spike is always just Spike.  
And what will happen to Willow? And what will happen to her? Will she remember? Any of this? It's already fading, somehow. Something is leaving her. She shrugs. She has no choice. She has to let it go.

The most immediate, most terrible thing is the transition from gentle darkness to full daylight. Tara clenches her eyes shut, then claps her hands over them. She hears Willow moan, and reaches out a hand.  
Willow yelps, “Oh, gonna barf,” then runs out of the room.  
Slowly, Tara forces herself to open her eyes. On the computer screen, there are two Giles'. She jumps up, stumbles, gets up, stumbles again, gets up, actually falls over, then crawls to the phone. She dials his number. She gets back over to the screen, and watches one of them pick up the phone.  
“Hello?”  
“Hello,” she gasps, “Giles?”  
By now, Willow has joined her. “Is it him?” Willow whispers.  
“Is this Giles?”  
“Yes. Er, Tara, is that you?”  
“Yeah,” she laughs, then clears her throat, “Are you okay?”  
“Ask him something only he'd know,” Willow hisses.  
Tara covers the phone for a second. “Like what?”  
“Oh,” says Willow, and gestures for the phone. Tara gives it to her, and Willow presses the speaker phone button. “Giles,” Willow says.  
“Yes. Willow?”  
“Yeah, it's me. I forgot the name the of the Computer Science teacher at Sunnydale High School. Could you tell me?”  
Tara watches the screen, watches his shoulders fall as he reaches for his glasses. He hesitates for a moment before taking them off. When he speaks, his voice sounds strained. “Willow, I don't want to talk about that right now.”  
“It's important that you tell me.”  
“Why?”  
“Why?” Willow and Tara look at each other. “Because, um, I'm working on my resume, and I need, uh-”  
“She needs a reference,” Tara interjects. Willow flinches.  
There's a pause. “I'm afraid that's not possible.”  
“Why?” asks Tara.  
“I know what you're trying to do, and I assure you, it is me. I'm me.”  
“We need to hear it,” says Willow softly.  
He sighs. “She's dead.”  
“Dead?” Tara mouths. Willow nods.  
“She was killed by Angelus. And her name was Jenny Calendar.”  
“Giles, we're so sorry. But we had to know.”  
“Giles,” says Tara, “he's there to kill you. We can't explain it right now, but he's there to kill you, and you, you have to-” Tara gesture helplessly.  
“You have to do something,” Willow puts in.  
On the screen, he's put his glasses back on. “I know all about that. We're just working through some things just now. Thank you for calling. I'll talk to you soon.” Before they can say anything else, he hangs up.  
“I guess we just keep watching,” Tara says.  
“I'm gonna lie down. Just tell me if anything important happens.”  
“Here,” Tara says, and sits down on the bed, facing the computer. Willow lays her head in Tara's lap.  
Willow closes her eyes and smiles. “Cozy.”  
“We have to figure out what happened. Obviously, you and I remember everything, but do they? Do Giles and Ethan?”  
“Are they supposed to? I mean, we know, because we did the spell, but-” Willow frowns, “This is so confusing.”  
“We know, because we did the spell. You remember everything that's happened, right, in the past four months?”  
“Yeah. I mean, I might be a little fuzzy on what I had for breakfast all those days, but I remember the important stuff.”  
Tara looks down. “Like about me, and my family?”  
Willow squeezes her hand. “Yeah. I remember that.”  
“There's something else I have to tell you, though. It's not about me. It's about Dawn.”  
“Who's Dawn?”

“They're very clever young ladies. You don't give them enough credit. Tara, especially. She had me fooled for weeks.”  
Giles sits down. “So, why didn't you stop her?”  
Ethan shrugs. “She was only doing it to help you. I can respect that. Also, she was so keen to learn, and you know, I'm beginning to understand your affection for these young people. It feels good to teach, to guide, to give something back.”  
“Don't you think it's time you took off my face?”  
“I suppose so. Just, er, give me a second.” Now that the spell is broken, the illusion fades easily. Ethan shakes his head. “There. Back to normal.”  
“Will anyone else remember?”  
“Well, Willow and Tara will, of course, because it's their spell. And I will, because it was my spell, and it's still a part of me, even though it's broken. And you will; I suppose because your death was powering it. But you weren't really dead, were you?”  
“I think I rather was.”  
“Well, in the physical sense, but you were here. You remember.”  
“Yes, I do. Though, there are a lot of things I'm going to have to try very hard to forget. Really, Ethan? In my bed?”  
“Well, you were dead at the time. And technically, it never happened.”  
He takes off his glasses, but then puts them back on. “What do you want? What could you possibly still want? You pretended to be me- You took my life, literally and figuratively. What's left for you to take?”  
He's rather stuck, isn't he. “I suppose there is nothing left.”  
“Thank you. Now, would you leave? Please. Just leave. And don't come back.”  
And, really, what is there left to do

but to go back to the Sunnydale Arms. Where he's spent so much time in the past. Happy days, he thinks, and sighs aloud. Not really happy, but before this. Before things changed. Though, he has no one to blame but himself. He feels settled, somehow. It's all over, and there is no resolution, and he didn't get what he came for, whatever that actually was, but at least he doesn't have to do any of this anymore.  
There's a knock at the door. He can't be bothered to get out of bed to see who it is. “Come in.”  
The door opens a crack, and, oh, it's Tara. “Ethan?”  
He sits up a little, tucks another pillow behind his back, closes his shirt. “Ah. Yes.”  
“I think there's a problem. With the spell that Willow and I did, to break the spell that you did.”  
“Well, that's magic for you,” he reaches for the cup of tea on the nightstand, “You never know how it's going to turn out. It's full of surprises.” He takes a sip. “If people knew how truly unpredictable it is, I don't think most of them would bother.”  
“It's just that, I think, I think there was something else. I don't- I don't know how much I should say, but I think there was another spell, and I, we might have undone it, too. I know things, now. I know things that I didn't know before, things I don't think I want to know. I feel like I should say something, to, to warn people, about what's coming, but I'm not even really sure what it is. I just know that everything's changed, and that it's going to change even more.”  
“Well,” he says, sitting up a little higher, “it sounds like you just described what it is to get older.”  
“Well, no- but I guess,” she looks down, “I guess you're right.”


End file.
